Remembering George Parnassus One Year After His Death: Pray for Him Always

I would like to have written, "one year after his entrance into heaven", but that would annoy him ; he would have chastised me verbally, because he was most painfully aware of his recurring sins. He said he most definitely wasn't going directly to heaven. He believed that he would have to spend time in purgatory to be made pristine for his vision of God in heaven. In one homily he called it "Gym for the soul."  I, and others, have always felt that the suffering of his last two years, maybe more than that, was sufficient to purge him, on earth, such that he bypassed purgatory and is experiencing the fullness of God's endless, timeless love.

Sunday, August 17 there was a memorial Mass for our former pastor, my former mentor, friend and something of a father substitute after my own died in 2008. I know I was not alone in this experience of him.  The Mass was well attended enough, I suppose, although I did note absences of many old friends of his life, with a certain amount of sadness. Perhaps they did not know, and it was not, a matter of, as one friend of mine said, "out of sight, out of mind."  Enough friends were there, one next to me in tears said, "I miss him so much." It was, whatever the numbers, a reverent, beautiful Mass with hymns, several of which were his favorites during his life, that engaged the spiritual senses and emotional heart. The Ubi Caritas, Bread of Life, to the music of the adapted spiritual from Dvorak, known as "Coming Home."

Monsignor Murphy, in his homily, a blend of religious instruction and memories of Monsignor's contributions to the beauty of the parish edifice and appeal to our spiritual senses in order to create the context of prayer, struck just the right tone. You can hear the homily if you go onto the Saint Victor Catholic Church (official) web site for the 17th.

It was a concelebrated Mass, somewhat by accident, although again, Monsignor would have said, "There are no accidents with God" and I have come to see that certainly in the last many years. The concelebrant, Fr. Rudolf Lowenstein, OP (a Dominican)  was the son of an old friend of Monsignor Parnassus, the father having been a famous business manager for the Rolling Stones, a character who in business suit and dislike for rock music, presented something of cognitive dissonance in the rock world. With his serenity and English accent the son (a second son is also a priest) he added particular poignancy to this one year remembrance.

The lady with the dog was there. This, I can tell you, Monsignor Parnassus would never have permitted; unless the dog was a service animal, he would have received an unceremonious, "heave ho"but as usual, the dog behaved with great dignity, sitting on her lap. I still love seeing that dog, despite myself, and I think I would have told Monsignor that, as we the servers spoke before Mass in the sacristy.  He would have dismissed my feminine tolerance. We would laugh over our disputation.

There will be a rosary said next week after the 8 a.m. Mass at St. Victor on Saturday, August 23.  A caravan of as yet undetermined size will go to his grave at Holy Cross Cemetery, off Slauson in Culver City, this ceremony, this prayer, which he so desired, to occur one year precisely after his burial at the site in front of the statue of the Good Shepherd with whom he now communes.  

            
All I can end with at this moment is an "Amen"; so be it.